decoupling Reward Systems from broad-scale Story Arcs
David Berg:
I've been chatting recently with some GMs who pre-plan all the major plot points in their scenarios, and communicate what they're doing to the players in such a way that no one gets any unpleasant surprises.
This has made me wonder how the players can care about what their characters are doing. But then it occurred to me: determining where the game goes has nothing to do with gaining XP in D&D or losing Sanity in Cthulhu. And it says nothing about the smallest scale, where Cthulhu's primary social rewards operate: the portrayal of encountering alien horror and going mad.
The group jumps on the GM's railroad, and then plays to find out and determine what that looks and feels like.
I kinda always knew this was definitionally possible, but it was only recently that I read a thorough description of how it could go. Todd F. says:
From my Hollow Earth Expedition scenario for this year. At the start of the session, I explain to the players that this adventure focuses on action, a la an Indiana Jones movie. Their job is to keep the audience on the edge of their seats. I then open the adventure with bad guys stealing a crate of something from a university. The PCs see the bad guys from a distance as the bad guys load the crate into a truck and start to drive off. My intent is to have an exciting car chase with lots of over-the-top stunts.
About half the time, it doesn't occur to the players to chase after the truck. Some will react as if it's a real-world situation ("I write down the license plate number"). Some will attempt to bring the action to an abrupt halt ("I shoot out the truck's tires"). In those cases, I usually say, "Rewind. Remember two minutes ago when I told you to make an action movie? A truck is driving away with stolen property? What would Indiana Jones do?" That's always been enough to make the lightbulb go on. I've never had to tell players, "Chase the truck!" Although I would tell them that, if I had to.
The Good That Follows: I want an opening scene that shows off what the game system can do and sets the tone of my movie. That's my job as the GM of a convention game. I've planned events within the car chase that will give the players opportunities to be creative and will give them something to react to. This scene will also let them discover how I apply the rules to over-the-top action, because no two GMs use the rules of a game in exactly the same way.
But here's where the real GM fiat comes in. As soon as the car chase starts, I say: "Here are the rules for the car chase: (1) The bad guys are going to get away with the crate. That's just the way it is. (2) Pretend you don't know that. Make the car chase as exciting as you possibly can. If you come up with an ingenious idea that should stop the truck from getting away, you'll also need to show the audience why that idea fails. Any of the resources that you spend this scene (Style Points, ammunition, whatever) will be returned to you at the end of the scene -- plus additional Style Points, the number of which will depend upon how exciting a scene you make this. (3) The car chase will last exactly as long as you want it to. When you're ready to move onto something else, the bad guys will get away."
Most of my players have played out the car chase scene for about an hour and a half. It's almost half of my adventure.
In case it's not obvious, the second half of the adventure is the recovery of the crate. The reason the bad guys' escape is by fiat is so there's something to recover. Happens all the time in action movies.
The Good That Follows: Once those rules sink in, my players have a lot of fun with the car chase. Because they don't have to think about tactics (since the bad guys will get away anyway), they focus on making the scene fun and exciting. Some players will come up with stunts that hinder the PCs, thereby helping to explain why the bad guys were able to get away. I reward those players with extra Style Points, of course.
As a reader, I have all sorts of alarms going off, but then each is addressed. The players don't have the type of agency I'm used to, but they do have a type that works for this game. The game's creative constraints aren't what I'm used to, and they aren't presented in a way that I'm used to, but they are nevertheless functional.
At the end, the PCs win. Todd doesn't fudge any rolls or have the badguy turn into a moron, but he stacks the odds enough in the players' favor that the outcome is essentially a given. But the players do get to spend all their earned Style Points to stamp their unique signature on the victory, to fill the movie with good scenes of action and dialogue, which is what this activity is really all about.
Kind of like how Cthulhu gaming can be all about generating the key touches and details and expressions to make a gripping Lovecraft story as opposed to a perfunctory one.
I'm not aware of any game texts that support the functional version of this type of play, so I'd like to consider what sort of design could produce that.
Does anyone want to discuss that?
I don't have any concrete ideas yet, but I think it might be necessary to relate rewards to the fiction by way of aesthetic rather than factual criteria. Like, instead of, "use these mechanics when you try to pick locks/fire guns/manipulate someone", perhaps, "use these mechanics when you do something badass/clever/shocking/stylish." Or maybe that's just a feedback issue, and not a reward issue.
Eero Tuovinen:
Oh, isn't this participationist genre simulationism with or without a focus on unique snowflake PCs? FATE does that, at least with the snowflake PCs, all the way to Timbuktu and back on under three gallons a day. Spirit of the Century, say.
I myself am not very interested in doing this with adventure fiction, as it's so difficult to break out of the Hollywood pigpen in that genre. There probably aren't enough players for a whole group on this planet who'd be sufficiently educated on adventure cinema to play efficiently, but not so much as to yoke their imagination into an endless regurgitation of the tropes. However, I've had some very satisfying horror genre roleplaying with essentially similar creative agenda. Dead of Night and Dread are two excellent games for this sort of thing in the horror context.
stefoid:
Wushu?
happysmellyfish:
I'm intrigued by the gear-change that the GM seems to be implying. So the first scene is basically a time out from the rules, with the outcome explicitly pre-determined. All of the resources expended are returned to the players - it's a space basically outside of the usual mechanics. Then, the "boss fight" or whatever turns those rules back on. Or does it? Or, more to the point, why does it?
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At the end, the PCs win. Todd doesn't fudge any rolls or have the badguy turn into a moron, but he stacks the odds enough in the players' favor that the outcome is essentially a given.
If telling people, "Look - this is the outcome we're heading towards, just play it out and have fun" works so well, why bother letting the rules creep back in? The numbers are stacked so that the players are very likely to win, but what if they still lose? Is the GM willing to let that stand?
I believe Todd, if he says this kind of play works; I'm just interested in the bipolar approach.
David Berg:
My example aesthetic mechanics aside, I think the most interesting design goal here is actually the participationist structure, not the genre sim.
Do you know any games that help a group communicate in that respect in the way Todd describes? I mean, tons of games allow you to do it you want to, but the whole history of our hobby speaks to the mixed results of that. I'm looking for something that actually helps it go well. Todd had to do a lot of years of crappy railroading to get where he is now, and I'd consider it a fantastic service to cut that phase out.
As for the genre sim angle, Eero and Steve, I know plenty of games that support that by modeling fictional causality in genre-apt ways, but I don't know any that say, "If stabbing that guy right now would be good for the movie, we don't care how good you are at it or how difficult it would be." If Wushu or FATE do, please let me know; I haven't played either.
HSFish, Todd's take on the bipolar approach is that different creative constraints serve the game best at different phases. I suspect that knowing they'll be able to win the day by the rules at the end is part of what makes players feel comfortable accepting different constraints earlier on, but I'm not sure. I should ask him whether players ever ask, "Will you script the ending?"
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